


Sweet Boy Remade

by TigerPrawn



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cruciatus, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, First Kiss, First Time, Happy Ending, Injury Recovery, M/M, Nightmares, Obscurial Credence Barebone, Obscurus (Harry Potter), Post-Movie(s), Pre-Movie(s), Reunions, but with memories set
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 22:12:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9259637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerPrawn/pseuds/TigerPrawn
Summary: When Percival Graves is rescued he's devastated to discover what happened to the sweet boy he had fallen in love with.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been floating around my head for weeks. I’ve been struggling with my Hannigram lately so what better to do than take a break by finally writing this slightly angsty but happy ending for these darlings?!
> 
>  
> 
> [Share this fic on tumblr ](http://desperatelyseekingcannibals.tumblr.com/post/155605443664/this-fic-has-been-floating-around-my-head-for)

He’d known. As soon as he’d seen Grindelwald, Graves had known why he had come for him. 

As Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, he might have been a prime choice. Allowing infiltration into the top levels of the MACUSA. Access to security information. Access to important people. 

Access to dangerous items. And persons.

Grindelwald had advanced, smile cruel. 

The pain of the cruciatus curse wracked his body. Graves was unable to fight, and that was the greater pain. To be so vulnerable and to leave others vulnerable. 

Because if Grindelwald used him he would have access to so much, so many. He’d have access to Credence. 

Percival Graves woke screaming in pain at the memory of that night. He didn't stop screaming until the nurses arrived and cast an enchantment, administered a potion. Enough to calm him. Enough for him to lay back in the soaked sheets and remember that it wasn't a nightmare. Credence Barebone, his sweet boy, was gone.

*

Graves had been optimistic when he had been found. Not so long a time had passed as far as he could tell. He had hoped that perhaps the deception had been clear and Grindelwald apprehended before he could do any damage. 

But as he was taken to the hospital the reality became clear. Tina Goldstein held his hand and talked to him. Asked him the last thing he remembered and she nodded and made mental notes. 

“The boy? Credence Barebone. He was helping me seek an obscurus. He's… important. Did… did…” he knew the news was bad from the look on her face, the tightening of her grip on his hand.

And then she shook her head. “It was him. Credence was the obscurus… he was… he's gone.” There were tears in her eyes. He fought the ones that threatened in his own. He couldn't speak through the constriction in his throat so gave only a curt nod. 

That had been weeks ago. Goldstein visited on occasion. Perhaps as a friend, perhaps for Picquery to see if he would recover enough to resume his position. 

Perhaps he could. Mentally. Physically. 

Emotionally?

He had been using Credence for the information he could give. That was how it had started. But then he felt something. 

He had expected to feel pity for the boy. But he felt drawn to his quiet strength. The boy had purposely taken the punishment that should have gone to the younger children. Perhaps he could have left, he was a man grown and might have made his own way in the world. But he stayed as their protector. 

When they had first talked Graves had been impressed by his intelligence. After a few meetings - earning his confidence and drawing him out - he had discovered the boy's sharp wit buried beneath sullen silence. When he has first witnessed his radiant smile, Graves had felt winded. 

He needed Credence’s help - to protect witches and wizards from detection, to find the obscurus before it’s destructive actions revealed them. But he sought his company more than necessary for that. Secret meetings in alleys, in back rooms. A stolen kiss under a bridge in Central Park. 

Credence had stepped back but not out of the gentle hold - the hand he'd placed at the small of the boy's back. His smile was shy and he blushed. 

“You don't have to… you know I'll help you. You don't have to do that.” Credence had said. 

“I want to. Do you want me to?” Graves had been fearful of the reply. Not because he could lose an important resource. No, that had stopped being a concern all too quickly. He was scared of losing Credence. 

Once the obscurus was found he would find a way to keep the boy in his life, squib or no. At all costs - he realised. He knew this so completely when the boy's smile grew and he stepped back into the embrace, his hands finding Graves’ face and pulling him into an eager kiss. 

It wasn't long before stolen kisses weren't enough and he grew reckless. But it was hard to think beyond the intoxication of his sweet boy and the connection he had found with him: All too brief encounters in quiet corners, spells cast to shield them; The one time he went too far but didn't care - and took Credence to his apartment. Made love with him on the couch when they found themselves unable to make it as far as the bedroom. 

After, he had run his fingers idly over porcelain pale skin. Avoiding the bruises that sickened him. But soon, he had thought - believed. Soon, the obscurus would be found, Mary Lou Barebone dealt with in a suitable manner, and Credence would be free. Brave, quiet, gentle, strong, witty and beautiful sweet boy - he would be free.

*

Four months Percival Graves healed. Physically. Each night he had nightmares, he just learned how to better hide them. Except the days when he couldn’t - when they would start as wonderful dreams of pale skin and dark hair made less severe as it was brushed from the boy's face in a tender caress. When those beautiful moments turned cold and ugly and Credence lay dead next to him, he could not stifle the screams.

He would mend. With time they said. The Cruciatus curse was damaging. It might take years to recover from, if ever. 

And yet the torture he’d endured was nothing to the pain of knowing he had lost Credence. 

Perhaps if he had realised? If he had seen. But, he had hadn't he? At some point it had clicked and he had known the truth that he didn't dare acknowledge for fear of losing the boy. Maybe he thought they would have more time and he would learn how to help Credence in some way? Or maybe he just wanted to live the fantasy a while longer - pretend they were untouchable for as long as could be allowed until the inevitable happened? He wasn't sure. And it no longer mattered. 

The thought hung heavy with him as the medics helped him into his apartment. They settled him in a chair, went over the potion doses with him. Told him who to call should he have an emergency. He hadn't even realised when they had shown themselves out. 

He nodded off. Woke. Moved to his bed. Lay awake. 

He went back to the chair, pouring a glass of the strongest alcohol he had on the way. He sat and drank. He slept. 

When he woke up he was slumped uncomfortably, the glass had dropped from his hand and rolled along the floor. 

He winced as he sat up and forward, trying to retrieve the glass that was just out of reach. 

And then it wasn't. It rolled toward him - slowly. Black smoke appearing behind it and pushing it on until it was in his grasp. 

He watched as the smoke expanded and unfurled. It filled the room, it washed over his skin. He could taste it in his mouth when his jaw dropped open. And he knew the taste. 

“Credence.” He breathed out the name.

The smoke drew back and condensed. It - he - drew together until he began to take shape. And then take a form. And then it was Credence. Naked with skin unmarked, hair longer than he had last seen it - softer, beautiful. 

Graves cried. His tears fell in heavy, wet drops as he doubled over. There was pain mixed with relief and disbelief.

Credence moved forward with a completely different grace than he'd had before. His hands were on Graves’ face then, a memory of their first kiss as he was drawn into another. He could feel the power Credence was holding back in order to be so gentle. 

A soft press turned into something deeper as Graves’ opened to the boy. 

“I’ve been waiting for you.” Credence pressed the words against his lips before drawing back completely. Hands still framing his face, Credence held his gaze. “I knew it wasn’t you. I’m sorry… I didn’t know who to tell, how to find you… I’m sorry.” A black tear rolled down the boy’s cheek leaving no trail at all. 

Graves sobbed. “You have nothing to be sorry for, my sweet boy.” He pulled Credence to him, the feeling both strange and familiar - the boy had been remade. “I’m sorry… I put you in danger and I’m sorry.” 

He felt Credence shake his head against him before pulling back from the embrace. They could go back and forth this way for an eternity. It didn’t matter any more, all that matter was they had found each other. He had found that smile again. 

Gentle, soft - slowly turning to a tease as his sweet boy leaned in again and claimed his mouth. Credence’s hands, his mouth - they remained solid even as Graves’ felt him slipping from that form - engulfing him, wrapping around him. He was surrounded, embraced. Graves let himself go, losing himself to the new sensation. 

The embrace lifted him from the chair until they floated together in their renewed bliss. And Graves wasn’t entirely sure it hadn’t always felt like this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Percival Graves is rescued he's devastated to discover what happened to the sweet boy he had fallen in love with. It seems his dreamed reunion is an impossibility - or is it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a crazy long delay... finally here is the chapter 2 I promised!

Credence remembered the first time Percival Graves had healed him. 

He had taken a beating for one of the other children, taken the blame for something he hadn’t even been sure of - that he didn’t really know the details of. He just couldn’t let her beat the children, not if he could help it. 

The first time that this happened after he had started meeting with Graves, the man had taken his hand and healed the deep and blooded welts left by the leather belt. He had felt giddy, amazed. Such wonder to heal someone like that! Ma had always told him witchcraft was evil, but the first act he really saw was that act. Was the man who had showed him such care and attention, healing the pain inflicted by the woman who had taken the place of his mother. 

It was that care and tenderness that told Credence the truth. Witchcraft wasn’t evil, these people were his people, the people of his birth mother. But more than that… the truth of Graves. That he was not Graves. When he healed his hand another occasion after that, Credence knew. 

He had suspected for a short while - Graves wasn’t quite himself, a level of their closeness and intimacy gone as though the man hardly knew him. But it was when he healed his hand and didn’t seek to kiss it that he truly knew. 

And then Graves did something he had not ever expected and yet had constantly feared - he rejected him. Made him feel that he was useless and of no value to him. That pushed him over the edge, took the last thread of control. The thought of Graves being gone, but in some way worse - the horrifying chance that this was Graves and he was being rejected, that he had been used... 

He let the obscurus take control. He let it rage for all the times he had not.

When they thought they had destroyed him, his body little more than evaporating smoke that he was unsure in that moment how to bring back together - he saw the truth.

Grindelwald. 

And then a muttering from Tina Goldstein - “Polyjuice…. Graves must still be alive.”

He wanted to be convinced by her words as much as she seemed to be trying to convince herself. But even the thought of Graves out there somewhere brought substance back to him. Allowed him to feel, to _be_ more than the drifting smoke.

He and the obscurus had become one, he just had to learn how to regain control. 

*

Time didn’t seem to move the same anymore. When he was the obscurus - when he took that form - everything moved very differently. Even so he knew that months had passed - were passing rapidly. He was able to get glimpses of people at MACUSA and understood Graves had been found. 

But there was nothing he could do, nowhere he could go… 

He was unsure how much time passed before the thought entered his mind - the memory of the apartment Graves took him to. The sofa where he had first felt the man move inside him as he stroked lovingly gentle fingers over his brow. 

When Credence found it, it was empty. Furnished as he had known it, but empty of life - it was as though the apartment itself slumbered whilst waiting for Graves' return. Credence had little knowledge of this World of Wizards he had been denied, so he was unsure how much of that sense was true. Perhaps there was some life to these trinkets and photos that were still but looked as though they should be alive and full of activity. 

Credence wondered how much this place might tell him about witches and wizards - the truth, not what Ma had beaten into him. 

He reached a hand to a book on a shelf. Felt he had anyway, in his mind there was a hand… and as he reached it out the smoke that he had become coalesced, the limb into form. Into a hand and an arm. 

It took weeks before Credence was able to fully control his form. He lived naked in this apartment, needing little, as he waited. Partly as the smoke he was. Partly as himself in his human form. The self he should always have been - he could see in the grand mirror in Graves’ bedroom - skin paler than it had ever been, making his hair all the darker. His hair had grown out, soft locks framing his face and revealing the true wizard he should have been. He fussed with it some days, tied it back. It felt different against his fingers now - delicate. 

The sight of his skin the first time he had formed himself in front of the mirror, had shocked and saddened him - sliced with a variety of scars from Ma. He had closed his eyes and kept control of the anger that threatened to send him back into smoke. When he opened his eyes again his skin was unblemished - the seemingly permanent reminder of that history erased.

Credence was content. 

He read, he learned from Graves' books. He looked at the photos that now _had_ begun to move - some even talked to him. He waited. 

Graves would return, he knew, and he would wait as long as that took.

*

The day Percival Graves returned, Credence had not been himself for a while. Existing as the obscurus - now that they were one - was like a dream. It allowed him to float above his own feelings of loneliness and pain. He was able to just dissipate to nothing in the air - thinned out beyond recognition, and it was nice. Time moved even more strangely this way and it held a distraction for him whilst he waited. 

In the end he wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Graves returned. The man was restless and moved aimlessly around the apartment. Credence felt him walking in and out of his essence, walking through him. It sent a vibration through him that was as close as he might get to pleasure in this form. He let himself remain and enjoy the sensation, all but following Graves so that they would keep making the unknown contact. 

When Graves finally settled in a chair, drinking and then passing out, Credence decided it was time to be himself. He was sure not long had passed but in truth it could have been days and he might not have known. He thought it was less, and as Graves stilled, and stopped passing through him, it was pointless to remain as he was.

Credence coalesced in one small place, forming a tendril of black smoke as it became more dense. He guided it gently down Graves’ sleeping face, caressing his cheek and wanting to take all the pain that was settled on the man’s brow. 

Graves flinched from the sensation, waking and dropping his glass. It rolled away from the chair and Graves watched it go. Credence watched the watching and then let his gaze follow the glass. It was so strange, so human a thing. A glass. 

Credence pulled another part of his form together, his presence that spread across the room drew into the thick smoke of his obscurus self. He rolled the glass back and watched as Graves’ gaze came to him. He had moved forward before realising it, letting his smoke unfurl over his lover. Wanting so desperately to touch him. 

“Credence.” Graves breathed out his name.

Yes, that was right. That was who he was. It was so easy to lose himself in the obscurus and forget the control he had mastered over it. Symbiotic now, one and the same. His obscurus self and his human self… his human self with hands and lips and teeth and tongue…

The realisation of it drew him together. He pulled the obscurus into him until the smoke shaped and fell behind his human skin. 

He was Credence again. 

Graves cried out, but it wasn’t pain. Not from injury, but perhaps the bittersweet pain of reunion. He was crying and doubled over and Credence instinctively moved forward - his need to touch and comfort the man was surely as great as Graves’ clear need for him. 

He moved gracefully, as though the smoke still carried his feet, it made him quick. He was before Graves in no time, putting his hands on his face - now feeling him with his human hands and not the tendrils of the obscurus. He closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath at the touch so long missed. 

Even as he held his lover’s face, Credence could feel the obscurus pushing beneath his skin. The passion he felt was both of theirs now, and the obscurus was hungry for it. It wanted Graves as much as he did but with a power Credence needed to keep control of. It was part of Credence now and had no intention of harming anyone he did not wish to harm, but it was also a strength that might cause damage without thought or due care.

Credence softened his touch, pushing back at the obscurus before leaning in to kiss Graves. The first brush of their lips sent a flash of energy through him as the obscurus revelled in the sensation. When they had kissed before, when they had been intimate, he and the obscurus were separate. Or at least it felt that way. Warring forces trying to take control of the same space in time. 

It hadn’t felt like that in the beginning, it had crept up on him until it was too late - until he realised it was himself Graves was seeking not one of the other children. And then it had been too late to even attempt the kind of control he had now - and that was for the best. He had read in books and notes in Graves’ apartment how usually hosts died young and could not be separated from their obscurus. By the time they had sought to separate them it ended with destruction, to kill one was to kill the other. It was embracing the obscurus in that moment of death and letting it save him, that had saved them both. 

Now that they were one, the obscurus loved Graves as much as he did. Wanted this as much as he did. 

Credence deepened the kiss as Graves opened to him, the obscurus nudging him gently - if it had a voice it would be whispering to take Graves, make him theirs. Credence’s cock throbbed at the thought. 

His thoughts were consumed by his love for Graves, how he’d missed him and what they had tentatively built together. How he wanted this man to show him the world that had been hidden from him for so long but was his by birthright. All his thoughts, his feelings of need and love and happiness resolved into one single thought - 

“I’ve been waiting for you.” Credence pressed the words against Graves' lips before drawing back completely. Hands still framing his face, Credence held his gaze as the human emotions the obscurus had calmed for so long came flooding out. “I knew it wasn’t you. I’m sorry… I didn’t know who to tell, how to find you… I’m sorry.” A tear rolled down his cheek. 

Graves sobbed. “You have nothing to be sorry for, my sweet boy.” He pulled Credence close. “I’m sorry… I put you in danger and I’m sorry.” 

Credence shook his head, it felt heavy - stuffy. Full of smoke. The obscurus was pushing again and Credence had no desire to deny either of them. He kissed Graves again, with a passion that he couldn’t control. As his mouth and hands explored he allowed the obscurus take him, his body dissipating once more into the black smoke. He wrapped around Graves, trying to get as close to the man as possible, trying to connect so completely with him. He felt Graves relax into him, letting the smoke billow and tendrils hold him as they lifted up. 

Credence - his whole self - sought his lover. His hands wandered, his upper body all that remained of him as the rest surged around Graves, tendrils loosening and pulling at clothing until Graves started to help. 

“I need you… we need you.” Credence told Graves. “I need to feel you again.”

Graves was nodding, numbly it seemed, like he was already half lost to the pleasure. 

“We want to show you there is nothing to fear.” Credence muttered as he let his hands help the tendrils and Graves' own in removing his clothing.

“I could never fear you my darling. Not even… not even as this.” Graves seemed desperate in his happiness at their reunion. “When I heard… I knew. And I… I need us to be together. You are mine Credence. I am yours.” His words were commanding and made Credence shudder.

“I want to make you mine.” Credence replied before kissing him hard, the memory of the time Graves had penetrated him came flooding back. Yes he wanted that. He wanted that again, but now he wanted to do the same to Graves. To renew this connection and their trust. And to give the obscurus what it wanted for the both of them, a consummation. 

He lowered Graves onto the sofa, the obscurus drawing back as he did so, leaving him standing as only himself - naked and full of need. 

His cock, that had been mere smoke moments ago, throbbed and he took it in hand, moaning at the sensation as he stroked it. Graves' eyes were wide as he watched. They had always been so furtive and private, so discreet even when they had made love. The time for that had passed. 

Graves started touching his own cock as he watched Credence. 

And that was all it took. The obscurus surged and Credence allowed it. Part of his body started to thin once more into the smoke and then tendrils of it were reaching forward as he walked. One snaked around Graves' cock and hand, another rolling like a wave up the man’s chest in exploration. A third tentatively moved between the man’s legs, gentle and tender as it washed over Graves' clenching hole. 

Credence let out a contented sigh that he felt to the ends of his tendrils as Graves allowed his legs to fall wider open and relaxed to let the tendril in. They carrassed and Credence could feel Graves clench beneath their touch. He moved slowly around, circling and gently pushing. 

Credence had never learned magic.

He knew from the books in the apartment and his small exposure to this world what wands were, the theory of them. And he thought about the possibility that if his life had been a little different to begin with then he might have had one of his own. Attended a school. Learned magic. 

Another thing he had learned was that magic, for an obscurus and many other magical creatures, was not the same as that of witches and wizards. 

He remembered the oil or lotion, potion or some such that Percival had tenderly applied when they were together before, something that had eased the way. It only took that thought for the bottle he remembered to appear in his hand, and less than a moment for the smoke to form new tendrils to pour and apply - more gentle caressing that had Graves moaning before him.

The wispy tendril eased in then, Graves letting out a low groan as it did so. His body writhing under the pleasure that Credence watched unfold. Smoke teased at his nipples, encircled his cock, pushed inside him - and Credence could feel it all. He stroked himself again before moving closer, the tendrils rippling as he did so. He moved to the end of the sofa and crawled up between his lover’s legs, rubbing their cocks together where he settled. 

Graves cried out and arched up before dropping back down with a thud. “Take me Credence, I need you. This is too… I won’t last much longer. I want you inside me.” 

Credence’s cock throbbed, as did the tendril pulsing inside Graves' tight channel. It pulsed again, starting to throb in a delightful rhythm as it slowly moved in and out - growing thicker with each pulse. 

“I love you.” Credence told Graves. “I missed you. We love you.” 

“My sweet boy…” It came out as a near groan a moment before Credence leaned in and closed his mouth over Graves'. He shifted his hips, the tendril slowly withdrawing as his lover moaned into his mouth. Other tendrils taking hold, gasping at his hips, holding him in place, cascading over Graves in order to feel every possible inch of him as Credence slipped his hard length slowly into Graves. 

Credence pushed forward, the intense pleasure of the tight heat almost too much. Now the obscurus kept him functioning, seeking the pleasure as it blossomed out of Credence. His human body was still there, thrusting slow and deep into Graves, but the obscurus was a plume around them, spreading out over Graves, touching him and holding him down. Caressing him and feeding every sensation back to Credence so that he thought he might burst.

Graves was dazed with pleasure, shuddering beneath the combined touch of them both as they fulfilled their joint need to take him. Smoke wrapped tighter around Graves' cock and began to stroke in place of his now redundant hand. More tendrils sought to increase and enjoy the pleasure - snaking over his body in a variety of different consistencies - two slight whisps pushing alongside Credence’s cock and into Graves. Credence felt them brushing the little bud within that he knew Graves had found within himself on this sofa once before. 

Graves cried out, hands scrabbling through the smoke to take hold of Credence’s human form. He clutched at his arms, holding on tight as Credence snapped his hips faster and deeper, feeling the tendrils coil into every pleasurable place within his lover until he thought they both might explode together and be lost in that pleasure forever. 

Graves screamed his name as he spilled his seed, hot ropes of it cutting through the smoke that adhered to him and landing thick on his body. Credence fucked through the tightening muscles, watching amazed as Graves shuddered and continued to spill until there was nothing left in him. 

It was with his own cry and the stiffening and shuddering of the smoke around them, that Credence released within Graves. 

The pleasure cascaded over the three of them in waves, pulsing through the smoke and into Credence and Graves as they gasped for breath before Credence fell forward onto the messy chest beneath him. 

When their bodies came together the smoke seemed to blow out - forced out and away and then slowly thinned and became part of Credence once more as he lay - human - on his lover. 

“I missed you. I can’t lose you again. I can’t…” Graves was sobbing. 

Credence shuffled up, kissing the tears from his face. “We won’t let that happen again. We know how to protect ourselves now.”

He could see the worry in Graves' face and understood - people would always seek to destroy him. They would never be safe. 

“They’ll never take you from me.” Graves murmured, nuzzling into Credence’s hair. 

Eventually, after their bodies parted, they both fell asleep - entwined and spent. 

It was hours before the sunlight through the window woke Credence. He stretched along the sofa, realising he was alone there as the smoke extended from him, unfurling and stretching along with him. He could hear Graves in the bedroom so he stretched a little more and then pulled himself from the sofa.

He wandered into the bedroom, the black smoke of his obscurus billowing around him like a cloak - an affectation of wizardry that they both found amusing. He stood in the doorway and enjoyed the way in which Graves looked up and his eyes drank in the sight of him like a man near dying of thirst. Percival Graves was the first person, the only person, to ever make him feel like someone special, like anyone at all. He was never going to let anything come between them…

And apparently neither was Graves.

When the man finally pulled his gaze from Credence he returned to packing a case. The items sinking deep into it and he piled more on top. Magic, of course. Credence smiled.

“I read the files, Tina gave me them… your files. There was a man. An Englishman, I think… I think that he would help keep you safe. He will help protect you and your obscurus, help educate.” He spoke quickly. “I already sent owls, arranged passage.” He huffed a chuckle as he looked up again. “I think I may even have a job at the Ministry of Magic if I want it.”

Credence was overwhelmed for a moment. Not leaving, not _his_ leaving, he had nothing here to stay for, never did. But that Graves would upheave his entire life for him? Even after everything, the idea shook him, but then the strangeness of it turned to warmth and love. 

“You… you don’t want to go?” Graves asked gently, clearly misinterpreting his hesitation. 

Credence smiled, the smoke pulsing and floating him forward until he was able to fall into Graves’ arms and it engulfed them both. He shook his head and smiled up at his lover. 

“I’ll go anywhere with you… though you may need to teach me how to ride a broomstick unless there are other ways to travel?”

Graves laughed and kissed him, gentle and slow, and Credence could feel the weight lift from him - the terror that had plagued Graves seemed to melt from him. Credence wanted to do everything in his power to have Graves be always as happy as in that moment. 

Together and happy forever. 

Always.


End file.
